


Two Slow Dancers

by maraudersreign



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Depression, F/M, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Mental Health Issues, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Sad smut, Self-Hatred, Sexual Content, Smut, Suicidal Thoughts, forced breakup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-24 19:53:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30077478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maraudersreign/pseuds/maraudersreign
Summary: Just this.One dance.Slow.Breathtaking reassurance of a love not yet unrequited.She was almost there.Just.Hermione Granger struggles with the reality of her depression. She lets herself be consumed by it as Draco Malfoy tries to love her broken pieces.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 44
Kudos: 88





	Two Slow Dancers

**Author's Note:**

> AN: Please heed the tags! These are topics I take very seriously. I’ve had people I’ve lost to s*icide and have struggled with these thoughts myself. I write to cope with the weight of them. Please remember how loved you are and that you deserve everything good in this world <33 
> 
> TW: suicidal thoughts.

Light shone through and between the sheets of tangled limbs. 

A window that had been left opened in her dorm room — waking up next to her lover had left her in a daze. Whom at which; had brought shuddering feelings crashing between each rational thought she barely had anymore. She’d wake up beside him and he had been sound asleep, something that made her heart ache and twist in all the ways she loved.. and then.. absolutely despised herself for having at all. 

She grabbed a cigarette and crawled beneath the glittering light beside the opened window. 

A habit she picked up when she was sixteen — though she never meant to, it was the only thing that kept her grounded at times like these. Thinking too much. Hating herself more. Staring at her naked lover — that she would soon have to break the fragile heart of. 

Hermione loved Draco. 

_Loves him._

She just hates herself more. 

So much so, her heart couldn’t make room to relish in the love that came blazing out from Draco Malfoy’s _cold_ heart. That had grown warm and tender over the years of learning how to love Hermione Granger. 

He was everything — he was fucked. So fucked and she loved that. It balanced the pure light that seemed to constantly distract her from what she really wanted. What she needed. 

And he was beautiful. Strikingly so. He could be Ares. The defined shape of his jaw — the way his torso curved in ways that made her chest rise and fall so hard she lost her breath. Everything she needed. 

Their relationship started in sixth year. 

Right before the war. Just. 

He found her in the courtyard one December night — she was absolutely screwed. She knew that. She was falling for him and dealing with how to tell herself she was allowed to have it. Have him. 

And now two years later and Hermione was still trying to fight that heavy conflict in her head. 

It was her and that dark cloud that lingered so close she was almost the storm. The storm that overshadowed Draco Malfoy. 

She was the golden girl, right? 

And Draco Malfoy was the ex-Death Eater war criminal. 

Then why did she feel like he was moving on so easily? So precisely to the point that it shook her so badly… she considered that he wasn’t actually _real._

But he was. 

So real it hurt. So real… it reminded her that she didn’t deserve his love or romantics. 

She didn’t. 

None of it. 

And as she took the last drag from her cigarette. She was reminded that she was slowly killing herself. Not just from the sodden tobacco. But.. she was surely ending it all with the way she would never move on and never give her lover as much as he gave her. 

She needed to break his heart so badly, he hated her _again._

Her shoulders were trembling and she felt that same familiar prick in the corner of her eyes and that burning sensation in the depths of her throat. She looked at Draco and she died just a little more inside. Oh.. she loved him. 

But this was the end of that. 

She needed to save him from herself. 

It tore her in pieces, that she didn’t care enough to find and mend them together as they were. 

* * *

“Granger? Why are you so quiet?” Draco asked, his hand cupping and sliding along her arm tentatively. Goosebumps appeared at his every touch. 

But her heart continued to break. 

Hermione was reading, but not really. Her mind took her other places. Places where she could love him, _really_ love him and take care of him as he deserved most in this world. A world that had failed him more times than not. Where she wasn’t numb. Where she could kiss him and truly savor the taste. Where she could have sex with him and not push him away the minute he was inside of her. Where his touch made her feel so safe — she didn’t ever want to untangle from it.

his forbidden scent that made her nose tingle and her ears light up red. 

She wanted to feel warm. 

Wanted to feel like she deserved his love. 

She didn’t deserve anything of it. 

That was the problem. 

Everything in this world was taking down the walls in her mind that she had learned to finally put up. They crumbled. They fucking disintegrated till there was nothing left but that constant gnawing at her thoughts that seemed so useless now. It was her lament. 

She inhaled so quietly, not even Draco could see the way her ribs inflated. 

She knew even he could make out such a minor detail. 

She turned a page of the book she was definitely not reading. 

And then brown met grey. 

Her throat clicked dry and her heart throbbed. 

“I’m reading, why must I talk at the same time?” Her response was rather cold. 

His eyebrows bunched together and he flashed her a small smile that didn’t even indicate a reason behind it at all. 

“I mean in general, Granger. Why don’t you talk to me anymore? I miss your voice.” He was closer now, so close his touch almost burned her. 

His hands rested upon her cold skin. 

The book in her lap nearly slid off as his large pale hands replaced the leather hard-back. 

Her body almost repelled back. Her heart hurt at his touch. A touch she didn’t deserve. 

“You’re hearing it now, aren’t you? I’m right here, what do you want me to say?” 

“That you love me.” 

“I do.” 

“Why don’t you ever say it anymore?” And that’s when she saw Draco Malfoy’s eyes shine with liquid that crowded his grey pupils — that once filled her with darkness. 

So dark.. she almost gave into it all. 

Maybe she should’ve. 

Maybe she would feel something. 

The words wanted to come out. It was like they were stuck. Lodged so far back in her throat, she nearly choked on those three words that meant everything to him. 

She did love him. 

She does. 

But she doesn’t deserve his love. 

It was November now. 

They had months before graduation. 

And she was falling behind in everything. 

He was a distraction. 

But did she ever really pay enough attention to him? 

And then when she was pulled out her thoughts. 

He was kissing her neck and she suddenly felt nothing. 

Because — forcing herself to forget the way it felt to feel _good,_ to feel as if she was totally engulfed in all that was Draco Malfoy. His love. The way his hands once made her feel as if she could never be _more_ safe. Forcing herself to forget that he was home. He was the home that made her feel alive. 

Hermione didn’t deserve it. 

And as his tongue made paths and pretty bruises along her neck and the way his hand travelled gracefully and almost like a muscle memory into her aching scalp — she had to make it stop. She couldn’t make those noises for him. 

She couldn’t do it. 

His other hand playing along the inner workings of her thighs. 

_No, no, no._

She didn’t deserve– deserve him- _no, no._

She squeezed her eyes so tightly together it felt as if they could burst. That her chest could break open from her erratic heartbeat and her breathing that felt like a punishment against his skin. He deserved more than that. He deserved for her to touch him back. _Again._ For her to kiss him and mean it. 

For her to love him and mean it. 

For her to capture each kiss of his into a small locket and wear them like a centerpiece that held together the broken pieces of her heart. 

She wanted to feel like she was deserving of it. 

But she wasn’t. 

Her mind was like a maze. She couldn’t find another turn or the end of the crowded trees that blocked her view from what she wanted. What she needed. It was him.

His fingers played with the hem of her skirt like a violin — so fucking beautiful it hurt. 

_Oh, it hurts._

Her cheeks were surely flushed. Not from lust or love. But from torment and regret. From self-loathing and the way of ever deserving his intense intimacy and pleasure filled her with abhorrence. 

It had to stop. 

“Draco… Draco please..” 

“Mmmm… Granger,” 

Her eyes were filled with tears. 

The sensation rushing to her ears — the burning begging to make her shatter right there under him. 

“No… Draco, stop. We have to stop.” Her voice was cracking and her heart was breaking. 

_Please.. no.._

He immediately unlatched from her throat but his hand at her thigh, rubbed in small circles. He was trying to soothe her. He was trying to make her feel safe and remind her that he would do anything for her. 

“What’s wrong? Talk to me. _Please.”_ He asked her, his voice shaking and absolutely pleading for her to say just one thing to him. Anything.He needed to hear her say something.

She wanted to shatter. 

But what else was there left to break? What else was there to tear harder and kill her faster. 

She felt like a black-hole. Sucking everything up. Making everything that once held so much light and goodness — disappear until it was nothing but a ghost of the outline of her undoing. Who she was before. She became the black-hole. She just didn’t want to bring him down with her. She didn’t deserve him. He became good for her, maybe he was good before… fixed all his wrongs. But he became better for her. 

Even if she was entirely grateful for that. 

She hated it was her he tied himself so tightly to. 

She didn’t plan on being here much longer. 

He needed to hate her. 

He needed to forget he loved her so he could let her go. 

And then— she didn’t say anything to him for the rest of that night. 

He wanted to hold her. She wouldn’t let him. 

No contact.

No more attachment. 

* * *

He found her sitting by the black lake. 

Soaking in the chilled air. 

Trying to find some reason to stay alive. 

As he walked closer, she realised he should’ve been that reason. 

He once was. 

That seemed so long ago. 

She looked up at him, his white hair blinding in the sun's brightness just above them. He was wearing his black dress robes again. His appearance wasn’t as disheveled. 

It was winter break and she knew he was going home. Going home without her.

He conjured a small blanket under Hermione and himself as he proceeded to walk over and sit beside his lover. 

“I’m leaving soon,” 

She looked down at her hands in her lap, anxiously pulling at the skin in a nervous tick. 

How would she be able to talk to him? 

Should she tell him the truth? 

“Granger.. are you sure you don’t wish to come with me?” He asked her, his voice small and wavering at some point. 

Her hair fell over her face, just enough to hide the single tear that rolled down her cold cheek. 

She responded with, “I’m not sure my presence is welcomed- I’ll be fine here, D- Malfoy. You’ll be back soon. You should go spend time with your mum and dad.” 

“That’s a lie. You know you’re welcomed at our home. Mother made the clear just after the war. Your family too–” She cut him off, feeling as if she had grown angry. 

Her face flashed in ire as she looked up at him. 

“You can’t be certain that’s the truth.” 

_Lie._

“You need to go, Draco.” 

She was cold and brutal in the only way she could be. The only way she knew. This was for him. Saving him. Saving him like he saved her once. 

_I will bring you down with me._

She wanted to tell him right there. She wanted him to know he had to stop caring for her. She wasn’t going to be here long. She wanted to sob. Wanted the glass to shatter so hard — her heart would physically break and there would be no more of her tormented soul. No more of the forceful gestures of affection. He didn’t deserve this. None of it. She repeated it in her head like a mantra. It was the truth. Her truth. 

One that he hadn’t known. 

But he could feel it. 

With each passing day, he felt the tug of their soulmate bond loosen. It was unwinding right in front of them. He started to notice… but he didn’t— 

He didn’t want it to be over. 

If he had to thread the knot himself, he would do it. It was better than losing her. 

She was falling out of love with him. 

Because she forced herself to. 

It became so natural at this point. So familiar. Like she was meant to do it. 

Somewhere — so far back in her memories and her heart. Was the love she’d always have for him. Even when her body was cold and nothing but ashes that were to be spread across the sea. Somewhere, was a piece of Draco Malfoy. 

He inched closer to her, his arm brushing her shoulder. His fingers falling overtop of her hand that had stretched out onto the blanket five minutes again. 

She wanted to feel that love seeping from his fingertips. 

But she couldn’t. 

It was impossible. 

She’d faded those memories long ago. Those feelings that had been lost in a trapped box somewhere in her mind. Occlumency was all she had. 

She let his hand rest there. Feeling her warmth. She wasn’t sure if that'd be the last time. 

She had a plan after all. She didn’t want anyone getting in the way — although he wasn’t truly in the way. He just didn’t need to be there to watch as she took her last breath. She didn’t want his tears. She wanted him to be happy. Wanted him to marry someone who actually wanted to be alive. That actually felt the need to kiss him every chance they saw him. 

“I love you. I’ll come back soon, no matter what it takes, Granger. Promise me you’ll be okay?” His fingers folded in hers. Again. Like a muscle memory to his whole body. 

She would give anything to protect him. 

But she had to let him go. 

Just not yet.

_Not yet…_

One more time. One more kiss. One more embrace. One more ‘I love you’.. couldn’t hurt. 

And so she told him she loved him. 

And then she kissed him. 

_One more kiss._

Her lips trembled and her eyes burned just so. 

She watched him leave that night. Imagining he was walking away. That she didn’t have to do it. That he made that choice for her and that he wouldn’t be so devastated when she decided her time was up. 

Graduation and she would walk out his life — one she wanted to save. 

* * *

His hand cradled the dip in her back gently, his fingers tapping along the edges like they were stars in the midnight sky. 

It was February. 

It was Valentine’s Day. 

And he had her in his dorm room, holding her close as they danced to an old Muggle record. It was soft and it made her smile for the first time. She smelled him, her favorite scent. Citrus. Sandalwood. Mint and musk. She hated that she couldn’t get rid of it. She was meant to forget about the way it sent nothing but comfort down her spin and small goosebumps along her trembling shoulders. 

_This was supposed to end.. right?_

But she let him have this. 

Just this. 

One dance. 

Slow. 

Breathtaking reassurance of a love not yet unrequited. 

She was almost there. 

Just. 

His chin rested on her head full of curls, settled between them like they were mammatus clouds. He was humming along with the song, she could feel the back of his throat vibrate with each verse and each small melody that escaped the small Muggle record player and himself. 

This was the last time. The last embrace. 

He held her tight. 

As if he knew it were the last. 

Of almost everything. 

He loved Hermione Granger so much — he would take his last breath for her. He would kill for her, no matter the consequences. She even thinks.. that even if she manages to break his heart in two, his eyes would stay glued to her back, watching for anyone that planned to hurt her in the future. 

The room smelled like pink roses. Not much, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there at all. He had a small rose sitting on the bed. One he had given her. 

He does that every Valentine’s. 

She remembers why. 

Taking her back to when they stumbled upon a small field of flowers just outside of Hogwarts one night. They were high and he picked a single rose bud from the entangled bushes. He was laughing. She was laughing. They had both felt the heat rush to their cheeks as he placed the pink rose between her ear and hair. 

It was one of the only memories she let herself remember at all.

It was the first time she fell completely in love with Draco Malfoy. 

And now — years later and she hates herself so much. So bloody much that, she doesn’t see herself living long enough to marry him. Have his kids. Be there to hold him when he doesn’t feel like moving on. Hold him when he needs it. 

It breaks her. 

It tears her apart. 

But she has to tell him. 

Soon. 

_Soon._

She nuzzled her head deeper into his chest. 

She sobbed. 

She couldn’t stop. 

The glass shattered that night. He walked them to the bed and sat her in his lap. Holding her. Helping her breathe. 

“No more dancing,” 

“Okay,” 

“Draco…” She muffled into his shoulder. 

Why did he have to be so comforting. Why did he have to know her so well? Why did he have to understand. He understood everything. To the darkest parts of her. 

She needed to talk to him. 

_Really talk to him._

She was so wrong for stringing him along like this. Making him think it’d be him and her in the end — when there wouldn’t be. Not ever. 

Because she’ll be gone. 

And he’ll be with someone else. Someone that will accept the breath that fills their lungs. 

She lifted her head just a bit. 

Just. 

“I need.. I need you to know something.” It was getting harder to breathe through her sobs. 

He grabbed the back of her neck gently, pulling it in a distance that met his eyes. Where they could really look at each other. 

Again as if it were the first time. 

“Tell me. I’m right here. I always have been, I’m always listening to you.” His thumb rested on her cheek and then he was pulling back some of her curls behind her ear. It was such a small display of affection. It made the tears burst out of her. 

Sometimes, when you don’t know to give as much as you take. You start to believe you weren’t ever meant to fall in love — receive if anything under the umbrella of love and romance, because it wasn’t something you were able to give. It was beautiful, yes and that’s why it hurt so much. She couldn’t be beautiful for him. 

“When you and I first started actually seeing each other, it was something I never thought I’d be able to experience. That I had the chance of getting to know the real you and see who you really are. I know you now. I know all of you. So much that it’s overwhelming sometimes.” And then she let that last sentence leave her trembling mouth, “I just wish you knew me as much as I know you.” 

Her tears were surely soaking his jumper by now. 

Damaging more of him. 

An erosion of everything that she hated about herself. 

And she really did wish he knew her. 

His face twisted up into a look of confusion. Almost as if he began to pout at her. His lip curved and his eyebrows returned to that same confound expression that could always be found on a Malfoy’s face. 

His eyes. 

_Oh, his eyes.._

He was hurting. 

She just had to let him know. 

He held her tighter against his chest and rocked back and forth in the bed. 

She loved him. 

_I love you, I love you, I love you._

But I have to let you go. 

I have to learn to _not_ love you. She repeated those words in her mind for months. 

“I do know you, Granger. I know what makes your mind tick. I know what line of every book that makes you squeal or tear up. I know every path and line that curves in your body. I’d know if it was you in a hundred mile radius. I know all of you— don’t say I don’t, because I’ve spent more than half my life falling in love with you over and over again. I’ll even love you in my next life.” 

With each word, he was shaking her head. He was shaking her body. He needed her to know. 

But… he just didn’t know she was already planning on letting him go. 

“That’s just it. There’s more. So much more I wish I could tell you, but the words- they feel like they are stuck. Like their so far back it’s like a fragment of my imagination, but I know they’re there and I know I need you to hear them. It’s not fair. It’s cruel. So cruel. You should know, you should kn–” He kissed her. 

He swallowed her air. 

He was tasting her and pouring all his love into her. It was fire and then it was ice. It was power and then it was just plain weakness. For her. 

Oh.. it was so beautiful. 

Blinding. 

A sculpted piece she wished she could display in her mind on repeat, even when her body has melted away from this world. 

“I know, Hermione. I don’t love you any less for it. Nothing could erase the way I feel about you. I can love you enough for the both of us. If you’ll let me.” His bruised lips were resting on her sweat coated forehead. 

Damn him. 

The pieces didn’t fall together. 

Like they should’ve. 

They just fell harder. 

Faded almost into nothing. 

She didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want him to suffer through her. She didn’t want him to mourn her. She didn’t want another reason to stay. She loved him and yet that wasn’t enough. 

He needed her. 

He was just as broken. 

He was just as faulted as her, maybe even more. 

But Hermione had lost everything after the war. 

Her parents were in Australia somewhere and too many healers that refused to help her. She lost family and friends. She lost her will to continue breathing. Her desire for a family had been burned to nothing. Her kids deserved a better mother. A mother or father to Draco’s kids… and she would never be the one that he kisses her stomach as she hits another trimester. 

He wasn’t planning on letting her go. 

Not now — not ever. 

Not even in the next life and the one after that. 

Somewhere deep inside her, she believed she would do the same. That their souls had touched and tied together. That one day it would never be severed. Unless she did it for them. 

She left his room that night considering options. Ones that could allow her to leave and no one would be chasing after her. 

Malfoy wouldn’t be saving her anymore. 

* * *

It was the night of graduation. 

She had her hair done in tight silky curls. She wore a dress that stopped just above her knees — something Pansy Parkinson had chosen for her. 

And Draco had his eyes on her the whole night. 

This was it. 

And now as she held her wand tightly in that familiar grasp in her hand. She is reminded of the night she casted this same spell. One that tore her parents away from her for good — but it was for their own good. Something they deserved. 

Somewhere away from her. 

Because she carried the weight of pain and tragedy with her. 

She kissed him one last time. She embraced his warm body one last time. She told him she loved him one last time. Over and over again. 

She took him out to the courtyard where their relationship had blossomed into something beautiful yet tragic. 

“Granger? What are you doing?” He asked her, his voice shaking and his eyes narrowing on her wand. 

There were no tears. 

Not this time. 

This time she fought back that love they shared so deeply. 

She let him go. 

“I’m doing what’s best for you, Draco. Best for us. You’re going to be okay– better than okay, I always promised you a better life somewhere. I’m going to give you that. But that’s just not with me.” She was backing them up into a small alcove. His back slammed against the wall and nothing but betrayal and hurt flashed in his eyes. 

“It was supposed to be me and you. Always. Have you forgotten that?” He asked her in a soft voice, his breath scanning her flushed cheeks.

She pointed her wand right at his heart. 

Get him right where she needed to. 

“Hermione– don’t! Don’t you fucking dare! No!” He screamed at her, tears already welling up in his grey swirls. Swimming with heartbreak. 

_Yes, yes hate me._

Make this easier. 

“One day, I’ll be able to love you and not hate myself at the same time.” She smiled at him. Really smiled. 

All he could do was sob. 

“Hermione fucking don’t! Don’t! Don’t take this away. Don’t take you away from me. I can’t breathe without you. I can’t forget you no matter what you do now. You promised you loved me.” His hand lifted from the cold stone wall and he was holding her face. 

_One last time._

She resisted the urge to lean into his hand. 

“I have to. I won’t forget you. You just have to forget me. Let me give you something better.” 

“How– how can you say anything is better than _you?_ ” His voice was so soft it made her want to cry. 

She resisted. 

She leaned into his face 

“ _Stupify.”_ She whispered in his ear. 

His body landed to the ground beneath her feet. 

Her knees buckled. 

She fell right beside him. 

“It’s so much better this way. I promise. I don’t break my promises. I’ll always love you, but I never promised you had to love _me.”_ Her fingers threaded through his hair one last time. 

And then, “ _obliviate.”_ rolled off her tongue as if it were the easiest thing she could’ve ever done. 

* * *

**_November 20th 1996_ **

_“You’re impossible! Do you know that?” She yelled at him. Their faces inches apart. Heavy breathing filled both their ears as if it were the only sound left in the room._

_He smirked at her. That same curve of his lips he had always done._

_This one was just filled with determination._

_“Yes, yes I do know that, Granger. You tell me that a lot these days.” His eyes were darting between her own and her lips._

_This argument had sparked between which potion to use for their joint project._

_He kept trying to tell her for days she’d been getting the ingredients wrong and she apparently just wasn’t listening- but he knew he was right._

_She knew he was right in the end._

_“Fine. We’ll do it your way. I suppose it would be unicorn hair and not the jasmine flowers.” Her hair was already getting frizzy from the harsh chemicals in the air and he took such notice of that. He smiled._

_She was beautiful._

_And he remembers the first time he truly ever saw Hermione Granger as such. Her curly hair that had either been tamed or not. It didn’t matter. It suited her. And then her full lip, the small dimple right beside them._

_Her honey eyes. The way they glistened in every light that hit them. He was sure to never miss it._

_He loved riling her up._

_Especially in potions when her hair was so big it was adorable._

_Just like now._

_As he flicked unicorn hairs in the bubbling liquid._

_She stared back at him._

_His chest was heaving and he wanted–_

_Her lips came crashing down hard on his. This was no tender kiss. This was all lead from their banters and built up hate— that was really never hate, but it intensified it all the same. Their teeth were clashing and he was nibbling at her skin. His hands threading through her curls, pulling on her scalp. Her hands that had dropped to tug hard on his robes._

_They pulled back._

_Both in shock._

_But both hungry for more._

* * *

**_January 17th 1997_ **

_Their first time wasn’t gentle._

_It couldn’t be._

_And she wondered why._

_At times he would slow down._

_But his hips pounded forward at a punishing pace. One that made her ache for days._

_He kissed every inch of her body over and over again that night._

_Leaving his mark on her._

_“Say it,”_

_“Ahh… please.”_

_Her legs tightened around his waist, pulling him in deeper. Her head knocked back into the pillow. Her eyes squeezed shut as he pushed her into pure ecstasy._

_“Fucking say it,”_

_She knew exactly what he meant._

_And she hadn’t said it not once to his face._

_She was so close–_

_“Oh, gods… Draco!” She screamed as she shattered around him._

_That night he left her in her sheets alone._

* * *

**_February 14th 1997_ **

_She looked up to find her lover staring back at her._

_She hadn’t seen him since the night she gave him everything._

_They were in the courtyards, she had a book in her hand she had been reading. She watched him walk across the grass. His hands in his pleated trousers, his black coat unbuttoned and she could see his black jumper just under it._

_Oh.. he was fucking gorgeous._

_Of course.. she had always thought so._

_She lifted off the bench and nearly ran after him._

_Her arms locked around his waist and her face nuzzled into his chest._

_And in that moment — home would always be someone. Not a place. But a person, and Draco Malfoy was that person._

_His chin rested on the crown of her head and she could’ve swore he was laughing as his arms pulled her in closer._

_And then suddenly a smell appeared around them and on his clothes._

_Was he… is he?_

_“Draco?”_

_“Granger.” She could feel him smiling through his words._

_“Are you… are you high?” Her voice was muffled but she knew he immediately heard it._

_And then he laughed some more. His shoulder shaking and his heart racing._

_She would have joined him right there if he hadn’t been for when he pulled her off of him._

_“Yes, yes I am high. Would you like some, Granger?” He asked her, his eyes glossy and his smile crooked. She could see the small joint dangling from his long-pale fingers._

_She had never been high before._

_Not even with her Muggle friends._

_But this was Draco Malfoy and something about getting high with him, made her knickers pool._

_It was enticing._

_A true head-rush._

_“Hmm… fine, I’ll take a few hits, but then take it away from me. I’ve never smoked before and I don’t want to overdo it.” She told him as she reached for the small joint._

_It was clearly already hit off of._

_He was watching her then. Almost too focused. On her lips and hands as she took her first drag._

_She inhaled for five seconds and then before she could exhale, his lips were grazing hers as she got what he intended to do._

_This was both getting them off._

_He inhaled the smoke and then his lips were on hers. She couldn’t run to grab his shoulders, all she could do was kiss back as heavy and fiercely as he was._

_She would shag him right there in the courtyard. He looked and smelled too good._

_She needed that head change._

_Hermione backed out of the kiss and his thumb came up to rub lines back and forth on her bottom lip. Their eyes met and everything fell into place._

_“I’ve missed you.”_

_“Of course you did-”_

_She hit his chest as she took two more drags._

_“I missed you too, you know I did.”_

_And then she watched as he conjured a pink rose from the bush behind them._

_He raised it up to her ear and placed it behind it._

_“I don’t think my eyes will ever see anything as beautiful as you.”_

* * *

**_June 5th 1997_ **

_It was his birthday and they had spent the night shagging._

_It was of course — the only gift he wished for._

_They turned facing each other in his bed. Limbs tangled in the green sheets. Draco’s left hand cradling her face._

_He needed to tell her._

_He should’ve told her months ago._

_But he felt it. He felt it even years ago. He loved her._

_He was in love with her. He was drowning in all that was_ her. 

_“Look at me.” He demanded softly._

_Her head bended up._

_Brown eyes met grey._

_“Yes?” She asked in a small voice._

_He had to tell her._

_The words needed to come out._

_She deserved to hear them. She deserved his love. She deserved probably better than him — but she had to at least hear the words from him._

_“I love you, Hermione. I’m so fucking in love with you.” He almost felt the wind knock out his lungs as her eyes lit up and was suddenly scrambling to get on top of him. They were still naked._

_Oh, this witch.._

_She kissed him on his forehead._

_She kissed him on his cheek._

_And then their breaths were one again._

_“I’ll promise to always love you, Draco. Always.” She told him as he slipped back inside of her and it had been the most intimate and vulnerable they had ever seen one another._

* * *

She watched his eyes close. 

Forgetting her.

Forgetting them. 

It was what she wanted and now that she had it — she had to leave. 

She leaned forward. Her lips grazed his forehead one last time. 

“I’ll never break that promise, Draco. I’ll always love you. Maybe you were right — we could find each other in the next life. Where I actually deserve to breathe and where I can love you without hating the fact I’m still standing.” 

She let herself cry one last time for him. 

_One last time._

And then she was gone. 

**_FIN_ **

**Author's Note:**

> Ahh!! I’m so sorry for that heartbreak... I know it’s not the most shattering thing in the world but to me this little story means everything to me. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed xx


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